What No One Warns You About Before Decluttering

There are some things no one warns you about before decluttering a house.

The dream of a clutter-free home is so appealing, but the journey to get there? Not as glamorous.

When I first decided to declutter, I was overwhelmed and ready for change.  I thought controlling the chaos would be the answer, and ultimately, it was.  However, the actual act of decluttering was hard at times because I had no idea what I was doing.  

It seems simple.  Get rid of a whole bunch of stuff! I mean, how hard can it really be?  If someone had told me these truths before decluttering, I probably would have avoided a whole lot of heartache and conflict!

Here are the truths no one shares with you before decluttering a house:

Declutter your stuff first

When your house is a mess, you can easily see the mess left by your family members way before you see your own contributions. 

The kids’ rooms are overflowing with toys. Your husband has too many tools that take up space in your garage. Your daughter has make-up all over her bathroom counter.  Your son has clothes all over his floor.  They are the problem.

Chances are if your family has too much stuff, so do you. 

The one thing I wish someone had told me before decluttering was to “start with your stuff”.

Begin with your belongings before trying to declutter shared or family items. It’s easier to make decisions on things you know you don’t need.  

When you learn how to get rid of your things first, you are doing a few things.  You are first setting an example of what decluttering looks like.  You are setting the stage for what’s to come for the whole house, but you are allowing your family to keep their stuff safe…for now. 

There’s another part to decluttering your stuff first though.  You are also modeling what it’s like to work through the emotions of decluttering.  Decluttering can be hard some days.  

If you figure out how to best work through the emotions of getting rid of stuff, you will be in a better position to also help your family when it is time. 

So shut the door on your kid’s messy room and ignore it for now.  Start with decluttering your closet or something else that only belongs to you and figure out this whole decluttering thing for yourself first.

Be prepared for your family to freak out

Before decluttering, know your family will freak out about what’s to come.  They will see you getting rid of your stuff, and they will immediately get more protective of their belongings. 

They will say, “Mom has gone crazy! She’s getting rid of everything.”

Assure your family their stuff is safe for now.  Explain to them that you want more order in your home and life and are doing something about it. 

You can also point out that you are only starting with your stuff.  This goes back to modeling the behavior you want in the future. 

My husband fought me tooth and nail on decluttering some old college t-shirts.  I finally let it go and quit harping him about it.  One FULL YEAR later, I came home from work and he had cleaned out his entire dresser drawer!

Change comes with time, but you can’t force it.  Just know that your family might not have signed up for immediate change.  If this is your endeavor, don’t make it their task too…just yet.  This will minimize the freakout.

Take before photos (and after photos)

I have very few photos of my home before I started decluttering.  The only pictures I have are candid pics taken of my kids or pets, and the mess is very obvious in the background.

If you are making a purposeful effort to declutter, grab your phone and take a quick picture. 

Then, create an album on your phone and label it “Decluttering”. 

The space you are working on will not change overnight, but with time, you will see BIG differences.  It’s really cool to go back and see where you started. 

Know decluttering will be very hard before it gets easy

No one told me before decluttering that it would be really, really hard some days. 

Decluttering is often mentally and emotionally challenging at the start. The mess seems to multiply before it starts to diminish.

I heard about the benefits.  I heard about the space and calm I would achieve in my home. 

I did not hear about how decluttering would make me cry, frustrated, and even cause hard feelings between family members.  I wish someone had told me what was coming!

Knowing may have not made the hard moments disappear, but it would have prepared me emotionally for those difficult days.

You’ll want to quit…but you shouldn’t

When you declutter for the first time ever, you are changing a lot. You aren’t just throwing stuff away or carting it off to a donation center.  You are changing behaviors and habits.  It can be quite the wake-up call!

It’s common to hit a wall where you want to throw in the towel. It’s tempting to just live with the clutter.

There is light at the end of the tunnel.  Decluttering gets way easier with practice.  Hard decisions become quick second thoughts.  Donation hauls get smaller and smaller.  Your home gets calmer.

You just have to survive the messy middle!

Take breaks, but don’t give up.  When a big task seems too daunting, take on itty-bitty tasks, ones that might only take 5 minutes.  Progress is progress.

 “Just in case” is a lie

The “just in case” mentality can lead to holding onto unnecessary items that take up valuable space. 

If you haven’t used an item in a year (or two), it’s probably safe to let it go.

Let’s take for example that random box in the garage labeled “cords”, and you have no idea what any of them are for, but you kept them for “just in case”. 

Is it worth the storage space you are giving these items you may or may not ever use?

You might declutter something you need – and will survive

Mistakes happen. You might declutter something you later wish you had, but it’s not the end of the world.

I remember the first time I realized I decluttered something that we needed less than a month later.  For a fleeting moment, I thought maybe this whole decluttering thing was a terrible idea.  I’ve wasted money!

Looking back, I know decluttering things you might need later does happen, but it’s not the end of the world.  The space we gained from getting rid of the excess was always worth it. 

Besides, it’s amazing the level of creativity you use when you realize you need something but don’t have it.  Sometimes, even when you realize you wish you had not decluttered something, you make do anyway. 

You aren’t hurting the environment by decluttering.

I wish someone had told me before decluttering that those feelings of hurting the environment by getting rid of excess were invalid. 

Yes, I was throwing away things into landfills. 

Yes, I was taking things to donation centers (that were possibly never used).

Yes, I was contributing to waste. 

However, it wasn’t decluttering that was leading to the waste.  The waste was a direct result of my consumption habits.

We were spending too much.  We were buying things we didn’t need and never planned to use them fully.  Our environmentally poor habits were related to bringing the items into our home, not in getting them out. 

Know this before decluttering your house:

The hard work will be worth the effort

I wish someone had told me before decluttering that the hard work would be worth the effort and all the life-changing benefits we would see.

I didn’t just get a cleaner home.  I gained so much more, and all the heartache was worth it. 

When we first decluttered, we turned our basement from a storage room into a multi-purpose family room.  We literally doubled the usable square footage of our home!

Gaining usable space in our home wasn’t the only benefit.  We changed our shopping habits.  We started saving money exponentially because we weren’t spending money on clutter and unnecessary things. 

We started to value experiences over stuff, take more vacations, and eventually, we even had the financial stability to go to one income! It was crazy, and it all started with decluttering and spending less money.

These are things I wish I had known before decluttering.

What about you? What do you wish you knew before decluttering? Let me know in the comments below!